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Trent Franks

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who introduced several anti-choice bills in Congress including the recent 20-week ban, appeared on In The Market With Janet Parshall yesterday to warn about the deleterious societal consequences of not banning abortion. The congressman said if Americans “turn a blind eye” to the “horror” of legal abortion, “I wonder then what hope remains.”

“If we still let ourselves become insensitive at that point then I really am afraid for us as a human society,” he continued.

Franks then onceagain likened abortion rights to slavery and racism: “We wonder how our forbearers dehumanized African Americans, we wonder and say, ‘couldn’t they see the humanity in them?’ But they didn’t. And today we think they were so blind yet we are blind staggering blind in our own generation.”

In an interview with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins yesterday, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) once again expressed confidence that his bill banning abortion after twenty weeks will pass the House. The bill, known as the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, is set to come to the floor today.

Franks framed the bill as a heroic attempt to protect mothers and children from “heartless monsters” like convicted abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. While Gosnell was a criminal outlier, anti-choice activists have seized on his case to undermine reproductive rights. In an Akin-esque clarification, Franks stated “the medical community – that is, the legitimate medical community,” says that unborn children are able to feel pain twenty weeks. Franks’ source of “legitimate” medical knowledge appears to be a single 2007 paper that used rats as test subjects. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists actually opposes the bill, as well as the validity of the twenty-week pain threshold.

Franks: The Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is very truly and simply a deeply sincere effort to protect both mothers and their pain-capable unborn babies entering their sixth month of gestation from these heartless monsters like Kermit Gosnell. That’s the simplest way I know to put it.

Perkins: And Congressman there’s a reason behind this where you have chosen this mark of twenty weeks. This is not just arbitrary but this is based on the testimony of medical and scientific experts that have talked about what takes place at this twentieth week of pregnancy.

Franks: Tony, that’s right. You know, the overwhelming consensus in the medical community, that is, the legitimate medical community, says that these unborn children feel pain at the end of the fifth month or earlier. And the real question here- this is the bottom line. The real question is not whether these unborn children entering their sixth month of gestation are capable of feeling pain. The real question is are we. That’s the big one.

At a hearing today on his bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy without exception, Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona said he opposed adding a rape exception to the bill in part because “the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.”

Franks added, nonsensically, “But when you make that exception, there’s usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours. And in this case that’s impossible because this is in the sixth month of gestation. And that’s what completely negates and vitiates the purpose of such an amendment.”

Franks’ misinformed, Todd Akin-like comments on the mechanics of pregnancy are just the latest in a long line of extreme anti-choice positions.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) has been making the rounds on conservative talk radio to promote his new anti-choice legislation that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. On Friday, the congressman spoke to Janet Mefferd about the bill’s chances of passing and about the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, which failed last year.

Franks warned that “truth [is] totally disinvited from the debate” over abortion rights in Congress and seemed baffled as to why anyone could disagree with him: “The fact that it’s even debated here is beyond my comprehension.” Franks blamed opposition to his legislation on “evil” forces and warned that if his bills don’t succeed then “we may never find or regain the will and the courage to protect any kind of liberty for anyone.”

The fact that it’s even debated here is beyond my comprehension. Sometimes the hardest thing for me in Congress is to see truth totally disinvited from the debate and see some of the boldness that evil seems to have gained in our discourse. If we after seeing Gosnell cannot find the will and the courage as a people to protect these innocent babies, I am afraid we may never find or regain the will and the courage to protect any kind of liberty for anyone.

Franks didn’t stop there, arguing that banning abortion “is central to the survival of our country and the civility of mankind.” He told Mefferd that his strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade includes ignoring the courts and doing what “Ronald Reagan did to the Soviet Union, he said we don’t have to defeat them, we will just transcend them.”

Franks: This issue as you know is one that I believe is central to the survival of our country and the civility of mankind. The other [bill] is the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act and between these two bills, one of them a legal conundrum and the other on just the human side, the notion that we make these little babies suffer this way, I believe that these two bills together, they have now made it into the Republican party platform, I introduced both of them some time back and a long time before Mr. Gosnell came along, but I believe that the two together have the most profound implications for Roe v. Wade. I’ll put it that way and drop it at that point.

Mefferd: Good, I’m glad to hear that. Of course, that’s a question on everybody’s mind, with Roe v. Wade in place as the law of the land, as the left always likes to remind us, how is it possible if you do pass this legislation, I’m sure you will get legal pushback, but a lot of people will be saying how could you even get this legislation passed if Roe v. Wade is the law of the land? How do you respond to that?

Franks: Well the same way I do as to how Roe v. Wade got to be the so-called law of the land. Someone passed a bill and it went to the courts and the courts made a decision. Unfortunately we put far too much focus on the courts. I raised my hand and swore to uphold the Constitution, I didn’t say ‘as long as the Supreme Court allows me to.’ The reality is that if this is upheld, if either of these are upheld, it presents an almost impossible conundrum for Roe v. Wade. We don’t know if they would overturn Roe or not and that’s true, but we can also do essentially like Ronald Reagan did to the Soviet Union, he said we don’t have to defeat them, we will just transcend them. They will fall on their own, you know, pressure themselves with their own weight.

In an interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council today, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) said he is confident that his bill banning abortion after 20 weeks will “pass with strong margins in the House of Representatives,” and warned that the US is doomed if the country doesn’t totally abolish abortion rights.

Even though the recriminalization of abortion would surely drive more women to dangerous, back-alley abortion clinics like Kermit Gosnell's, Franks told Perkins that abortion rights proponents want the country to “embrace the evil that Dr. Gosnell has displayed to all of us” and “send America over the brink.”

He went on to argue that President Obama, whom he once called an “enemy of humanity,” will “go down in history as the abortion president” and that his opposition to abortion bans will “shame” his administration.

If we embrace the evil that Dr. Gosnell has displayed to all of us, if we embrace that as a country, then I am afraid that we have not only lost the battle but we’ve lost the war. This generation would be the one that would send America over the brink. Even if it survived as a particular nation, everything that was in the hearts of the Founding Fathers when they dreamed of having a country where all of God’s children would be allowed to live and be free and pursue their dreams, that dream will die if we don’t have the courage to stand up for the weakest among us.

…

It’s my conviction that it will pass with strong margins in the House of Representatives. Then of course the equation is before people like the Senate Leader, will Harry Reid allow this to be voted on or to be debated fairly? That’s going to be the question. It occurs to me that over time we will probably win this. I hope that it comes to the point when we have a president that will sign it. This president will go down in history as the abortion president and of all the things that will besmirch his record, and there will be many, nothing will cast more shame on this administration than standing by and letting millions of children die in darkness because he simply refuses to see the light.

Rep. Trent Franks, Republican of Arizona, joined Family Research Council president Tony Perkins and anti-choice activist Lila Rose on an FRC webcast yesterday on “exposing America’s late-term abortion industry.” Franks, who recently introduced a bill that would institute a national ban on the rare practice of abortion after 20 weeks, compared his fight against reproductive rights to the ending of the Holocaust and the abolition of slavery. “We are the ones that rushed into Eastern Europe and arrested the Holocaust, we are the ones that said no more to slavery after thousands of years, and by the grace of God, we’re going to be the ones that say that we’re going to protect our own children,” he said.

When Perkins asked him to elaborate on the stakes of his bill, Franks answered that if it fails, “I would suggest to you that we undermine everything that America was ever dreamed of to be and we step into that Sumerian night where the light of compassion has gone out and the survival of the fittest finally prevails over man…If we turn our backs on this, I’m afraid we’ve broken the back of what America really is.”

A jury today found Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell guilty in the deaths a woman and three infants in a squalid, nightmarish abortion clinic. Anti-choice groups have been closely following the trial, attempting to link Gosnell’s crimes to the very existence of legal abortion. They have exploited the Gosnell trial to push for state-level “TRAP” laws meant to close abortion clinics with unnecessary regulations. Now, anti-choice groups are targeting legal abortion in Washington, DC.

Reacting to the Gosnell verdict, the Family Research Council and the Susan B. Anthony List both singled out a bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, that would ban abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah also plugged the bill in an interview with Janet Mefferd about Gosnell. The bill, similar to several that have been considered in state legislatures, is based on the disputed claim that 20 weeks is the point at which a fetus can feel pain. Such procedures are rare, accounting for just 1.5 percent of abortions.

DC has long been a convenient target for Republican lawmakers looking to expand school vouchers, eliminate needle exchange programs, stop gun control measures…and, of course, infringe on abortion rights. Thanks to a 2011 budget deal, for instance, the District is currently barred from using its own local tax dollars to help low-income women access abortions – a policy that has been in effect off and on for 25 years.

On Friday, Mitt Romney declined to condemn Rep. Michele Bachmann’s witch hunt against Muslim Americans in the federal government, breaking with GOP leaders like Senator John McCain and Speaker John Boehner. He said that “those are not things that are part of my campaign.” If that’s the case, then why did Romney hold a closed-door meeting the evening before with high-profile supporters of Bachmann’s effort, including Jerry Boykin, a leading figure in the anti-Muslim movement?

As Politico reported, Romney met privately on Thursday evening in Denver with a select group of right-wing activists. Of the four participants named by Politico, three are outspoken proponents of Bachmann’s witch hunt. Gary Bauer and James Dobson wrote to John Boehner to praise Bachmann’s “good judgment, undeniable courage, and great patriotism” for “bravely demanding answers to matters essential to the safety of the American people and our Armed Forces.” Meanwhile, Boykin signed on to a separate letter expressing “strong support for congressional efforts to illuminate and address the danger posed by influence operations mounted by the Muslim Brotherhood against government agencies.” He also claimed that “Huma [Abedin] is not the only person who has penetrated our government” and wondered aloud if President Obama is a Muslim Brotherhood member.

Boykin, however, is more than just a cheerleader for Bachmann – he’s a leading force behind the effort to drive Muslim Americans out of public life. Boykin recently became the Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council, but he’s best known as the lieutenant general who was rebuked by President Bush in 2003 and Defense Department investigators in 2004 for aggressively attacking Islam – in uniform – in the midst of two wars and an expansive anti-terrorism effort in the Middle East and South Asia.

Now retired, Boykin is on a mission to save the country from Sharia law and Islamic infiltration, which he sees lurking in every shadow and around every corner. His rhetoric is often bigoted, and he regularly traffics in wild-eyed conspiracy theories – like the one about Obama creating a Hitler-style militia to force Marxism on the American people or the one about international bankers plotting to form a Marxist, global government. (Don’t just take my word for it, see below for links to some of Boykin’s bizarre and disturbing pronouncements.)

Boykin, who last made headlines in January when he withdrew from speaking at West Point under pressure from cadets, faculty and outside groups, has argued that Muslims are not protected by the First Amendment and that there should be no mosques in America. In 2010, he joined forces with Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, and other anti-Muslim activists to form the so-called Team B II. The real Team B was an analysis commissioned by the CIA in the 70s of the threats posed to the US by the Soviet Union. Team B II, co-led by Boykin, presented itself as performing a similar analysis of “an even more insidious ideological threat: the totalitarian socio-political doctrine that Islam calls shariah.”

Nearly two years later, Bachmann, Franks and three colleagues fired off letters to federal inspectors general alleging infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood and requesting an investigation. The second paragraph of their letter, which fingered Huma Abedin, cited a series of web videos by the Center for Security Policy. The videos, available at MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com, are narrated by Gaffney and lean heavily on Boykin’s Team B II report.

Remarkably, the efforts described above have spilled into Egyptian politics, with unfortunate consequences. As the New York Timesreported in mid-July, many opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood, citing statements by Bachmann, Boykin, and Gaffney falsely believe that “the Obama administration harbors a secret, pro-Islamist agenda” and may have even “plotted to install the Islamist party’s presidential candidate in office.” As a result, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s motorcade “was pelted with shoes and tomatoes by Egyptian protesters” motivated by conspiracy theories that “originated with American conservatives.” With Egypt on the brink, nonsense like this only serves to undermine American diplomacy, just as his comments years earlier in uniform undermined American efforts to win hearts and minds abroad and likely put soldiers at increased risk.

Does Romney really think Boykin is an appropriate person to meet with? Did the meeting participants discuss Bachmann’s efforts with him? This is serious stuff that Romney should have to address. It was easy enough for him to sidestep the Bachmann question earlier, but given his meeting the evening before, he needs to be asked anew about Bachmann and Boykin.

As promised, here are some highlights of Boykin's conspiracy-mongering and Muslim-bashing:

“We have incrementally moved towards Marxism and now I think it's at an accelerated pace. ...

One of the things that Hitler did was he established the Brownshirts. ... Well, in the lead-up to the election, during the campaigns, our current president said very openly, and you can find it on YouTube, if I am elected President, I will have a national civilian security force that is as large as and as powerful as the US military.

For what? Why do you need a national civilian security force?

Now most people say, well we haven't seen any signs of the administration doing that. Until you go back and read what nobody in Washington read, and that's the health care legislation that lays out a provision for the commissioning of officers to work directly for the President in time of a national emergency.

Now what would bring about a national emergency? An economic collapse, a terrorist attack, a natural disaster - we talked about all those things here - which would then allow for martial law. The foundation has been laid.”

“We need to recognize that Islam itself is not just a religion - it is a totalitarian way of life. It's a legal system, sharia law; it's a financial system; it's a moral code; it's a political system; it's a military system. It should not be protected under the First Amendment, particularly given that those following the dictates of the Quran are under an obligation to destroy our Constitution and replace it with sharia law.”

“No mosques in America. Islam is a totalitarian way of life; it’s not just a religion. … But Islam, we need to think Sharia, it is not just a religion it is a totalitarian way of life. A mosque is an embassy for Islam and they recognize only a global caliphate, not the sanctity or sovereignty of the United States.”

"If you look at Hitler, one of the most disgusting things I hear is for people to call Hitler the extreme Right. The absolute opposite was true. It was the National Socialist Party. He was an extraordinarily off the scale leftist.

But many Jews in America, for example, can't identify with the Republican Party because they're called the party of the Right, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth."

If you need any more evidence that anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney is influencing Republican members of Congress to push a witch hunt against Muslim-Americans public servants, look no further than Gaffney’s interview with Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) today on Secure Freedom Radio. Franks, who is partnering with Rep. Michele Bachmann in her effort to investigate a supposed “penetration” by the Muslim Brotherhood into the U.S. government has apparently adopted Gaffney’s specialty vocabulary. Gaffney regularly warns of “civilization jihad,” “lawfare” and “pre-violent” techniques in his conspiracy-laden diatribes against Muslims in government; in the interview today, Franks echoed back all three phrases.

Franks told Gaffney that Muslim Brotherhood agents are trying to use “use our laws and our commitment to freedom and freedom of speech, which we all believe in desperately, but they hide behind it to couch what otherwise might be called sedition.” Later, the congressman claimed that if people do not listen to his warnings about the Muslim Brotherhood, “then that little unpleasantness on 9/11 has completely gone over our heads.”

Listen:

Gaffney: The central thrust of this effort really is not just that the administration doesn’t seem to understand it but that they seem to be perhaps receptive but at least being seriously subjected to an influence operation by these Muslim Brotherhood operatives. To what extent is there in your estimation enough of a basis for concern that this is done in a systematic, disciplined, rigorous way, I guess the Brotherhood calls it civilization jihad, to warrant an investigation by these inspectors general as you’ve requested?

Franks: The bottom line is the same ideology that precipitated the planning of the attacks that we suffered on 9/11 is the same ideology that gives impulse or animates this pre-violent type of jihad where we face this civilizational jihad, I think you’ve used the term, and I think it’s a very, very accurate term of where they are trying to work within our own system. I hear the term lawfare quite a lot, where they use our laws and our commitment to freedom and freedom of speech, which we all believe in desperately, but they hide behind it to couch what otherwise might be called sedition and hide behind it and call it freedom of speech.

Gaffney: Or freedom of religion.

Franks: That’s probably the worst of all.

…

Franks: The bottom line is that these letters were about the Muslim Brotherhood and if we don’t have the Muslim Brotherhood figured out as a hostile organization in the United States then that little unpleasantness on 9/11 has completely gone over our heads and I find that astonishing beyond my ability to articulate.

Sharia law and the Muslim Brotherhood are coming! Clearly that idea is ridiculous. Not even Rep. Michelle Bachmann believes that. She believes they are already here! On June 13, Bachmann, along with fellow Republican congressmen Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Thomas Rooney, and Lynn Westmoreland, sent a letter to the Inspectors General of the Departments of State, Justice, and Homeland Security, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, claiming that the Muslim Brotherhood has “operatives” within the US government. The letter attempts to link Muslim governmental officials to the Muslim Brotherhood and defames a number of American Muslim organizations.

Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, responded to the egregious accusations in an open letter today. Ellison points out that Bachmann and her allies took many of their claims from MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com, a website run by anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy. Gaffney has a history of making unsubstantiated claims about Muslims, a number of which Ellison lists in his letter. For instance, Gaffney has claimed that Muslim Americans who run for office do so to wage “stealth jihad” and has “accused New Jersey Governor Chris Christie of ‘corruption’ and ‘treason’ for appointing a Muslim lawyer to be a judge.” At the end of the letter, Ellison requests a list of all the sources Bachmann used to make these serious claims and asks that if the sources turn out to not be credible that the names of all accused be publicly cleared.

It would be nice if Ellison’s letter put an end to the fear tactics and Islamophobic statements that have become far too common in the Republican Party, but that’s sadly unlikely. Republicans, whose main focus is clearly the economy, somehow seem to find a new Sharia threat each election year. Has it really been two years since we first heard about the Park 51 Muslim Community Center?

Last week, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) appeared on Jay Sekulow Live to voice support for his PRENDA bill, which would ban abortion on the basis of gender. Franks admitted that the legislation was essentially a ruse to push the criminalization of all abortions, and while PRENDA received a majority of votes it failed to pass because it needed a two-thirds majority to pass under the suspension of the rules. Franks intends to bring the bill up again for a vote.

On Thursday, Franks told American Center for Law and Justice executive director Jordan Sekulow, who was sitting in for his father, that opponent of his bill will be “on the wrong side of justice and the wrong side of humanity, both in history and eternity.” Back in 2009, Franks dubbed President Obama an “enemy of humanity” due to his support of abortion rights.

Sekulow: People are calling this show, congressman, and saying ‘why is this so controversial? How is this even having to be debated?” But we’re one of those countries, congressman, that has no laws on this whatsoever.

Franks: That’s true. There’s a lot of reason why this gives the left indigestion. It shouldn’t. They should just say, ‘you know what this is a good bill and we’re going to vote for it because if we don’t we’re going to find ourselves on the wrong side of justice and the wrong side of humanity, both in history and eternity.’ You know this is a serious, serious issue.

Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) has been warning anyone who will listen that if President Obama wins re-election he will “crush” religious freedom and “abrogate” the Constitution, and his Friday appearance on Washington Watch Weekly with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins was no different, as Franks said that an Obama second term will mean that “this country’s national security is at risk.” Franks also said that Obama “doesn’t understand the intent of jihad and he’s become an apologist,” arguing that he and others have forgotten “the basics” of national security. Franks went on to tell Perkins that if he wins re-election Obama will “go forward with a complete ideological, left-wing agenda that we can’t even imagine right now.”

Franks: I mean it’s always amazing to me that we forget the basics, the basics of any threat is intent and capacity. This President doesn’t understand the intent of jihad and he’s become an apologist and someone who apologizes to them. Tony, I have to say to you, if we don’t change presidents I want you to know, I believe with all of my heart, I’ll go on record as saying that I believe this country’s national security is at risk.

…

Franks: If we think that he is going to accommodate us, we have lost our minds after the election, once the election is over you ain’t seen nothing yet. He will go forward with a complete ideological, left-wing agenda that we can’t even imagine right now, and I hope that we don’t forget that in all of this debate.

Perkins: Congressman Trent Franks I think you are absolutely right on that.

Last week, President Obama issued an apology after NATO mistakenly burned copies of the Quran, which not only set off riots in Afghanistan while the apology predictablyoutraged Republicans here at home.

Today, Rep. Trent Franks joined Tony Perkins and Tim Wildmon on the "Today's Issues" radio program, where all three voiced their disgust with President Obama, whom they accused of undermining the troops while appeasing the enemy.

Franks was so incensed that he even managed to compare Obama's apology for this incident to his push for contraception coverage in health insurance, saying Obama has no problem about blatantly insulting and assaulting Catholics while groveling before Muslim. Franks then went on to warn Catholics that if Obama is willing to "crush under foot their religious freedom in an election year, God help us when he gets re-elected ... because you ain't seen nothing yet":

During an appearance on Concerned Women for America’s radio program, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) admitted that his bill to ban abortions based on the race or sex of the fetus wasn’t so much about stopping race or sex-based abortions but a ploy to criminalize abortion overall. “The people on the pro-abortion side say, ‘Trent you have a much bigger issue and a much bigger agenda here than just sex-selection and race-selection abortion,’” Franks said, “and I think the honest thing for me to do is say yes that’s true.” Franks has long been a proponent of the discreditedassertion that abortion providers are deliberately trying to abort black children in order to exterminate African Americans, even arguing that black women were better off under slavery than today when abortion is legal.

Later in the interview, Franks repeated his extreme and conspiratorial claims about President Obama, arguing that his reelection would lead to constitutional and security crises and even the emergence of “nuclear terrorism.”

The people on the pro-abortion side say, ‘Trent you have a much bigger issue and a much bigger agenda here than just sex-selection and race-selection abortion,’ and I think the honest thing for me to do is say yes that’s true. I want someday for children of all sexes and all races to be protected and that’s definitely an agenda for me and I think it should be for all people in the human family. But at least we can get together on this much, that it’s wrong to abort a little child because it’s the wrong sex or the wrong race, if we can’t come together on that then I’m afraid that any hope of commonalty and unity in this country is lost forever.

…

The greatest challenge we have, and I’m going to be partisan for a moment but its reality, we must change presidents. At all costs, we must change presidents. This is the most pro-abortion president in the history of the country and not only will the unborn suffer terribly, the Constitution itself will essentially be abrogated by his Supreme Court nominees, our national security will be fundamentally weakened, we will become a regional power and we will face potentially nuclear terrorism in our world and unfortunately we will step into the shadow of European socialism if this president is reelected and the Congress won’t have anything to do to stop that. The equation is very, very clear, Americans must change presidents and I pray we understand that for the sake of the unborn and essentially everything else that we care about in this country.

The Bachmann for President campaign has announced the appointment of Arizona Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02) as Congressional Co-Chair. Rep. Franks joins the growing list of endorsements and support for the Bachmann team, not only in Iowa, but also across the country.

“I know Michele is right on the issues that are important to conservatives across the country and I know she won’t back off,” Rep. Franks said. “I have seen her at work in Washington, standing firm on key issues like Obamacare, the debt ceiling, and TARP.”

…

“Congressman Franks and I have fought together in Washington for smaller government and responsible government spending, and I’m honored to have him on my team,” Bachmann said. “He’s a respected colleague, and will be invaluable in our work to gain support in Iowa and the early primary states, eventually securing the GOP nomination.”

From: Marge Baker, Executive Vice President, People For the American Way
To: Interested Parties
Date: March 31, 2011
Re: Trent Franks Beyond the Pale: Representing the Extremist Wing of the Republican Party

Following the 2008 election, and the Right’s drubbing at the polls, many people suggested that the Right was dead. Some even said that People For the American Way could declare victory and go home. But we knew better. Despite our optimism at the inauguration of Barack Obama, People For knew that the Right remained a grave threat, with its infrastructure intact, its funders unbowed, and its extremists undaunted

People For the American Way today released its latest "Right Wing Watch: In Focus" report, "Rise of the New McCarthyism." The document examines the far right's adoption of strategies pioneered by Senator Joe McCarthy during his anti-communist witch hunts in the 1950s.

The How To Take Back America conference held in St. Louis September 25 and 26 drew some 600 activists and, according to organizers, 100,000 online viewers. The gathering was an expanded version of the annual conference held by Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, co-hosted this year by radio personality and far-right activist Janet Folger Porter and promoted by other right-wing bloggers and radio shows.